World Financial Center, 7PM, Wed.-Fri, Feb. 2-4, 2011

Friday, January 14, 2011 - 03:40 PM

Experience original scores by the Alloy Orchestra to classic silent films as part of the New Sounds Live concert series on February 2, 3 & 4th, 2011, each night at 7PM at the World Financial Center's Winter Garden. There are three nights of silents to be heard and seen - Harold Lloyd's “Speedy,” Douglas Fairbanks’ “The Black Pirate,” and a trio of comedic shorts; including a Chaplin film, a Buster Keaton film, and a "Fatty" Arbuckle classic.

The Alloy Orchestra returns to New Sounds Live annual winter film series at the World Financial Center, with three nights of classic silent films and shorts set to new music scores. Each night, starting at 7PM, experience a different film, accompanied by a live score. On Wednesday night, Feb. 2, Thursday night, Feb. 3, is Friday night, Feb. 4, And it's all FREE!All performances will be taped for later broadcast on New Sounds.

This trio of short films features some of Hollywood’s greatest comedians. Keaton plays a newlywed trying to build a home, Arbuckle stars as a bumbling stagehand turned actor, and Chaplin is a police officer on a mission. Each of these shorts is a testament to their comedic genius and introduced audiences to some of the actors’ best sidesplitting stunts.

Speedy, (1928)

This fast paced dramatic comedy explores the theme of modernization, pitting the last horse drawn trolley in the city, against the evil forces of the transit monopoly. Shot on location in New York City and featuring several landmarks including Yankee Stadium, Luna Park, Columbus Circle, and the Brooklyn Bridge, this was Harold Lloyd’s last silent film.

The Black Pirate, (1926)

In this classic tale of revenge, Douglas Fairbanks, “The King of Hollywood,” is bound by honor to avenge the death of his father at the hands of a pirate gang. Disguising himself as a sea-faring adventurer, Fairbanks is able to infiltrate the murderous band, kill their captain, and escape to safety. Filmed in 1926, The Black Pirate was shot entirely in two-strip Technicolor. Two of Fairbanks' most memorable scenes are in this film: sliding down the sail of a ship on the point of a knife, and the totally surreal attack of the underwater army.

ALLOY ORCHESTRA is a three man musical ensemble, writing and performing live accompaniment to classic silent films. Working with an outrageous assemblage of peculiar objects, they thrash and grind soulful music from unlikely sources. An unusual combination of found percussion and state-of-the-art electronics gives the Orchestra the ability to create any sound imaginable. Utilizing their famous "rack of junk" and electronic synthesizers, the group generates beautiful music in a spectacular variety of styles. They can conjure up a French symphony or a simple German bar band of the 20's. The group can make the audience think it is being attacked by tigers, contacted by radio signals from Mars or swept up in the Russian Revolution.

The Alloy Orchestra began their love affair with silent films with an original score for Metropolis in 1991. In the intervening years, the group has written scores for 28 feature length film presentations, typically premiering their new scores at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado. The group has performed more than a thousand shows around the world, and has traveled to a dozen foreign countries.

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About New Sounds Live

Defying rigid categorization and genre pigeonholing, New Sounds Live offers new ways to listen to new and unusual music worth hearing. With guest musicians and ensembles from all over the globe and from every discipline, from David Byrne to the Gyuto Monks to Meredith Monk to Ravi Shankar to the Bad Plus to Philip Glass to Bang On A Can, Schaefer presents performances from New York concert halls and premieres new works from the classic and operatic to folk and jazz, and anything else in between.

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